Is Taiwanese billionaire in talks to buy a stake in Nets? He says No

Reuters is reporting that Joseph Tsai, the billionaire vice chairman of China’s Alibaba group, is in talks to buy a stake in the Nets. But Tsai denies it,

CNBC reports that Alibaba was quick to deny it, putting out a statement moments after the Reuters report.

Last month, the New York Post’s Josh Kosman named Tsai, who was born in Taiwan, as a potential buyer of up to 49 percent of the team. That story was denied as well in that instance by Tsai’s family.

Tsai is worth an estimated $5 billion. He attended high school at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, and has undergraduate and law degrees from Yale University where he played collegiate lacrosse.

He and Jack Ma, one of the world’s richest men, founded Alibaba, the giant Chinese e-commerce company.

Mikhail Prokhorov has said publicly that he is willing to sell up to 49 percent of the team, but reports, including Kosman’s, suggest that he has not been willing to agree to sell a majority stake at some point.

Jeremy Lin is a Taiwanese-American.